Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Well, I have not managed to post up much here lately. Turns out life can get in the way of many a good blog post ending up becoming actually PUBLISHED on a blog.

Just plain a lot going on. Seems like the employer actually wants some of my attention span (Who the hell do they think they are?) Geez, it's like they pay me or something. We've had a couple of projects around the homestead here that have drained my energy and motivation, AND The wife and I are headed out for a little family visit. Now, when your wife is from Malaysia, that becomes a bit different than hopping in the car and heading down to Denver. We'll be in Asia for a couple of weeks, so I am not thinking my posting will get any more frequent.

The plan is to try my best to eat and drink a lot, exercise little, and see how my fitness does. Have not found the "4 week hard training block then 3 weeks of hanging out eating" training plan documented anywhere, so I'll take one for the team & see how that works. Hope to get a little news in from over there if I can. I'll try my best and suffer the indignity of being in the tropics. (Yep, I'll be on THAT beach...)

I hope all of you "beer-drinking-dads" have your own issues to keep you off the bike while I'm gone. Don't want anyone else "stealth" training on me now, Hear?

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

See a LOT of comments over on 303Cycling about the City Park Criterium. Seems to be a lot of angst in the road racing world about turnout, growth, pulling lapped riders and that sort of thing. The comments about getting dropped, getting lapped, and the harshness of racing road bikes in general got me thinking about why I have no interest in road racing, and why the road side participation numbers are stagnant at best, and may even be dropping.

When I started racing, I had a solid year plus of getting dropped and lapped in the Cat4 races. For SOME reason, I stuck with it, got faster, and finally started to be able to stay in a crit or flat road race, and even RACE a bit here and there. It was a long, tough and very demoralizing road to travel. With a shift to "older" participants, and the reasonably high cost of racing a bike, bike racing is turning more into a "rich old guy" hobby, rather than the feeder system for the Olympics and Pro ranks that it might have once been, or maybe IS in Europe. With it competing with many activities, I can see less and less people being interested in the struggle to "fit in" and be able to even finish a road race in the pack. Lots of other things out there to spend your leisure time & money on that do not slap you ego around quite so hard.

There is a distinct and relatively high "Entry Fee" of skill. Speed and fitness needed to race on the road. Fall short of that, get dropped, and you are now in the "You Suck" category in a hurry. Go home. Leave NOW! it screams. Not a lot of fun, it hurts your ego, and no one wants to be there. Maybe that's why Cyclocross is growing SO much faster than road racing. While you may not be at the true pointy end of a race, you never fell "dropped" and left for dead. No one expects to be pulled (at least in the local races...) and have that lingering "you don't belong" feeling confirmed in Cross.

So, do the new Road Racers now have too high of expectations? Is there a need for an even slower "starter" group (Anyone remember Cat 5??)? Do they need to HTFU and race more, no matter how hard it is? Is pulling HALF a crit field a good thing to do? Is road racing on yet another cycle of decline? Is the ease of posting on the internet just make it too easy to whine? I don't know.

I DO know that even after all the years I did put in to racing on the road (Badly... for sure...), I have ZERO interest in getting back in there to race on a road bike. Riding the road for "training" is hard enough to motivate for. Frankly, it is just plain boring, at least for me. Even racing, while "tactical", no longer has any excitement for me. Guess I need the added challenge of having to drive your bike, corner well, and ALSO race, rather than just see who can mindlessly churn out the most watts for an extended period of time. Course, that just may be because I happen to SUCK at churning out a lot of watts for an extended period of time. Oh, and I HATE hitting pavement at speed, especially if it's not my fault. WAY too much chance of that in road racing. At least when I crash in Cross or on the MTB, it's usually my fault.

Hats off to the roadies out there. Go get 'em. For me? Cross season is "just around the bend".